Australian virtue signalling over “America and gun laws” is an embarrassment that needs to end

Every time there’s some kind of firearm incident the United States, it seems Australians’ can’t wait to break out into a fit of dopamine boosting virtue signalling about how morally superior they are on firearms, interspliced with intense veneration of apparent lord and saviour John Howard and snide remarks about their ANZUS treaty protectors to the north.

It’s become a cult. Armed security-loving Australian politicians preach it, sycophantic wimps in the media cheerlead it and then the public writ large, buy it.

The lived reality is most Australians know very, very little about this issue outside of what is thrust in their face daily by the clueless mainstream press. 21 years of deliberate social engineering later, Australians lecturing Americans over gun control has become part of the national psyche along with bagging Australian cricketers and talking about house prices.

And frankly, it’s becoming embarrassing. Remember though, we have social media – where #equality reigns and everyone can be an expert, 10 likes at a time. Roll out the Occupy Democrats memes and snarky Betoota Advocate articles!

Ask the average Australian what the gun laws are in Australia. It’s guaranteed that 99% of them will not know what they are and how, for example, we ban firearms based on what they look like not what they can do. They also certainly won’t know what the laws in the US at the federal, state or county level are or what the gun laws anywhere else on the planet are.

They’ll scream “Port Arthur!” but don’t generally know what happened there or won’t ask why there was no Royal Commission or Coronial Inquiry into (at the time) the largest mass casualty event in modern Australian history, while the Sydney Siege had one begin six days later.

They won’t talk about the 49% per capita decrease in the homicide rate in the United States since 1991 while the firearm supply and number of concealed carry permit holders continues to break records. Not saying there’s causation there, but it generally puts paid to the correlation argument in terms of “more guns = more crime”.

They also won’t acknowledge the obscene murder rates in countries such as Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, Venezuela and other places where mass shootings and worse are a daily event. They’ll play the “muh developed country” card which is not only condescending and minimalizes the problems in those countries, but also inadvertently acknowledges the role of socio-economic factors as the primary contributors to violent crime, not gun laws. It also ignores the third world levels of poverty in the United States.

Further, where is the discussion on anti-depressant use and mass killings and suicide? It’s the NRA’s fault, not the FDA’s, stupid!

This Sheriff also makes a good point:

Comparing Australia to America on firearms is a false binary argument – a slew of complex cultural, political, social and economic factors, deliberately ignored by many an Australian media and political ultracrepidarian, render this simplistic comparison intellectually dishonest. These are generally not talked about or explored by your average Australian.

They also won’t talk about self-defence use of a firearm being used at a bare minimum 100,000 plus times a year in the US to prevent a slew of different crimes. This is while Australians whinge and moan about daily examples of violent crime on our newsfeeds with victims unable to protect themselves, Police unable to protect us and courts unwilling to punish well after the fact. Well like it or not, disarm the populace and this is what you get. But hey, just call 000 and wait 30 minutes like a good victim, so you can then file a Victim of Crime claim like every other Australian.

There’s also no discussion of why New Zealand has not had a mass shooting in 21 years either despite not changing it’s far more liberal firearm laws:

The stark hypocrisy is also noted during the numerous mass casualty attacks anywhere else in the world. Drive a truck through a crowd of people and the driver is to blame, but when it comes to the US it’s straight onto inanimate objects and something something gun laws.

Australia didn’t do gun laws well at all. We have rampant illegal firearm crime, criminals importing guns at will through our porous borders, daily violent crime with victims unable to defend themselves with so much as a pepper spray and we punish those who do take self-defence into their own hands. Australians were outraged when this happened to David Dunstan but as soon as you bring up the suggestion of firearms for self-defence, a legion of programmed fright bats emerge to tell you that being a victim is the morally superior outcome and that you’re purely the next murderer in waiting.

At the same time Nicholas Cruz was committing the latest atrocity, Mick Hawi was gunned down in Rockdale with a firearm that apparently didn’t find it’s way back to Michael Keenan’s amnesty. This is just after an Armaguard truck was ambushed and a week removed from the third gun store in 12 months being robbed, this time because our magical laws prevent gun store owners from using their own firearms to protect themselves.

We’ve had mass shootings since 1996 (although the goalposts keep on moving) and many non-firearm mass casualty attacks, with vehicles now seeming to be the weapon of choice. In the eyes of many Australians, for some reason being killed with anything other than a firearm is a more noble way to go. I know I’d much rather prefer to be burned alive, run over, blown up or hacked to death than shot. Good job.

We have Police now militarizing with semi-automatic rifles but in the same breath telling the public only they should have them. We have bollards that don’t work in our streets, anti-terror sirens and now facial recognition scanners being deployed on our streets. Much progressive, such freedom.

We now have a feral species disaster in the bush, so much so that we are now ranked 2nd worst in the world for biodiversity loss. This is while we, led by the Fake Greens, continue to disarm gun owners in this country and lock them out of areas where they are doing their best to keep it under control. Diversity – except when it’s biodiversity.

It never ceases to amaze me why we praise a war criminal for disarming us, while all of his policies have led to the wrecking of this country, while he sat back behind armed security chanting“I hate guns”. It also never ceases to amaze me how so many Australians think rampant authoritarianism is good for them, while the country goes down the tubes and is being politically and economically subverted by authoritarian countries like China. That is something Americans would truly be horrified at but why would Australians care or understand?

For all his pointless rambling and economic ineptitude, Joe Hockey made one good point earlier in the week that the United States being born out of a revolution was the reason they are so protective of firearms and their freedoms. They understood the price paid and the eternal vigilance required – I agree. Conversely, Australians still have a foreign head of state and have a commission set up to destroy people over hurt feelings because of words – why would Australians understand what freedom is? We now have politicians trying to ban each other from sleeping with staffers – that’s how stupid our country has become.

Look around the planet: Canada is letting ISIS fighters back into the country, Sweden now has 57 no go zones and is experiencing grenade attacks, Europe and the UK are a mess and right here at home we are now experiencing more frequent terror attacks that weren’t a problem 10, let alone 5 years ago. You can quite clearly see a trend of social destabilisation, so why is civilian disarmament being so aggressively pursued in these and other countries at the same time by governments who are causing the aforementioned problem?

In summary, the level of discourse in Australia has been reduced to simplistic sloganeering from a whole bunch of ignorant people. And I, as an Australian gun owner and law-abiding citizen am really sick to death of it.

Virtue signal on social media about how much you supposedly care for dead children all you want, the reality for most of the outragearati when these events happen is that you will do nothing.

Colion Noir nails it:

Personally, I welcome healthy debate on the issue but I generally like to set some ground rules:

If you’re not willing to develop the following:

Basic firearm knowledge

Knowledge of Australia’s firearm laws

Knowledge of the United States gun laws at the federal, state and county level

Knowledge of other countries firearm laws such as NZ, Switzerland, Czech Republic, etc

Knowledge of socio-economic causative factors of violent crime such as drugs, poverty, early childhood parental relationships with children, etc;

then sure, you’re quite entitled as is anybody to your own opinion on firearms, but I or others don’t have to take it seriously. I’m not saying I’m an expert at all, but a base level of knowledge does generally filter out the time and energy wasting rubbish. What do you hope to gain from screaming the same talking points other than a dopamine hit from the virtue?

Americans generally do not care what we think of their internal affairs, much like we don’t care for their views on our domestic situation. And in my opinion, that’s the way it should be.

Seriously, what are you going to do in the US outside of posting some cookie cutter, tear filled rants from Jimmy Kimmel, Jim Jefferies and a slew of other left leaning, authoritarian “comedians” who don’t know anything about this outside their teleprompters either? Really, what is your plan?

Perhaps watch this:

Ok, off you go.

You don’t have to be pro-gun at all, none of us are asking that. Hey, it’d be much cooler if you did, however, that is your choice entirely and contrary to what the Australian media says, we don’t care. Anecdotally speaking, a long time ago I was formerly anti-firearm but after actually listening to the other side of the debate coupled with being the victim of a home invasion, I changed my mind. And it’s a safe, fun sport that I enjoy down at the range or on a hunt sourcing my own food and protecting our natives from invasive species.

The fact is, unless you’re willing to delve deeper into the primary concern of what drives people to commit spree killings regardless of the means, which is the number one issue we should be addressing, you’re not contributing anything to the discourse at all.

I’m actually not disputing any of what you’re saying, far from it. And as a US citizen who’s not necessarily opposed to a certain level of gun reform, I do want to note that the US cities with – by far – the highest gun-related murder rate’s in our country are also the ones with the most restrictive gun laws.

I do have a side question about one point you brought up & apologize if it’s going slightly off topic. And I am honestly not asking to be facetious but because I’m genuinely not very up on the subject.
My knowledge of Australian species’ dwindling numbers is sadly limited to the falling Flying Fox population, which I understand to be more related the increasingly severe heatwaves.
What is the correlation between your country’s biodiversity loss in so many other species & the restrictive gun laws? Is it a matter of poaching & over-hunting where law-abiding citizens are being prevented from intervening to protect the animal population?

No Beth, it is mostly a matter of introduced species – particularly Foxes and Cats as Australian native species did not evolve to compete with creatures like that.
Feral Pigs also do huge damage and hunting used to keep those populations under control, now, with much greater restrictions on hunters and shooting in general those populations of feral species are doing more damage.

Politicians can carry guns for self-defence. We need top start asking them if they’re carrying, IMV there’s a lot to be said for letters to pollies. They don’t have to be long and even one good point might be enough for each letter. This article was very good but long-not a criticism, it all needed to be said-but they don’t have to take a long time and there’s nothing like physical mail for impact. I also wonder if they’re legally more powerful than email since it is tangible form and a human being signed it. Maybe. Just a question, but emails are good too.
Imagine how a politician might change their stance on guns, or at least go quiet, if even ten different people ask them if they’re allowed to conceal carry. I wonder how many hypocrites there are. Even if I’ve stuffed up and am wrong that they’re allowed to carry guns (I’m pretty sure I’m right), I still think its a good idea to write letters to politicians about gun-related topics.
Another argument many people will make is that a self-defence weapon would only make things worse. I saw a Victorian copper on A Current Affair make that argument a few weeks ago, and many people believe him. This one seems to be the last line for a lot of people who simply don’t want to go to the effort of changing their outlook.
Maybe next time, I’ll tell them that before 1996, police would lend a handgun to people considered to be highly vulnerable for whatever reason . Now we have highly ineffective AVO’s and Rosie Batty and the Alannah and Madeline don’t want to remind anyone that adults and children could be protected if this practice brought this back.

re the self defence will just make things worse argument, my reply is always that I’m pretty sure that Jill Meagers last thoughts, having been raped, as she was being strangled to death, prior to being dumped into a shallow grave, probably weren’t ‘thank god I didn’t have a gun or this could have ended really badly’.

Social Media

Firearm Owners United

Firearm Owners United was founded in response to the many hysterical voices crying out for further gun control in this country.
We already go through so many hoops to get our firearms as it is. We do not need more hoops. We don’t need a mother/father figure deciding what’s the best for us.
We are Law Abiding Firearm Owners, and we are sick of being treated like second-class citizens.